


Inspire Courage

by darknesscrochets



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: ... sort of?, Alternative Perspective, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Ghosts, Spirits, Telepathy, i'm not crying you're crying, not beta read we're already dead, spoilers for RQG 182, wilde gets to be a bard again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:15:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28879341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darknesscrochets/pseuds/darknesscrochets
Summary: Inspire Courage (Su): A bard can use his performance to inspire courage in his allies (including himself), bolstering them against fear. (PFSRD)Wilde walks through the Garden of Yerlik.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde, Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42





	Inspire Courage

The walk is--well, Oscar is often one for hyperbole, as Hamid could attest to, but he’s not exaggerating when he thinks that it’s _wonderful_.

At first it’s not. It’s the opposite, in fact. When they come close to the edge of the forest, it’s almost viscerally _terrifying_. He associates the bright, cerulean blue of the petals with betrayal and death, the color ingrained in his mind in a way that only heaps of trauma and loss can accomplish.

They get through it, he and Zolf do, and it fades into the background in the face of… whatever this is.

Oscar doesn’t know what the Garden feels like for everyone else, but for him, it feels like coming home.

The voices start out quiet, so quiet that he has to strain to hear them. They don’t make him nervous, though; something about this place is calming. It steadies him the way that only poetry and a glass of wine and Zolf would, normally.

When they do become audible, many of the voices don’t talk to him. They talk _around_ him, murmuring about the wonders of the Garden and the novelty of its newest visitors. Some do single him out, though; they begin with _hellos_ and _welcome backs_ , and grow more familiar as they all walk onwards.

Other voices take note of him as the original ones fade away. Oscar can feel their attention turn towards him, a sort of _intent_ directed his way, as each one speaks to him in turn.

One compliments his hair, newly white as it is. Another recognizes him from a picture that once ran in the papers, years ago, and tells him of the fondness they held for some of his earlier published works and articles. They go on and on, and their talk fills him with a buoyant joy, even as it dulls the rest of his emotions. He feels almost like he’s going to float away before Zolf ties them together to keep him tethered.

Oscar doesn’t know when it happens, but a presence coalesces at his side. One moment she’s not there, and the next… there she is. Like the new moon in the night sky, nearly invisible unless you know where to look.

Sasha did always have a knack for surprising people.

She doesn’t talk, but he doesn’t really expect her to. Her presence alone is comforting, bolstering. She’s a friendship that budded but never bloomed; with her comes a silence he can appreciate and reciprocate, in a way he wouldn’t have been able to when they were both alive.

It’s peaceful. He can almost forget, for a moment here and a whisper there, why they’re even here. Forget how poorly the last year and a half have gone--not just for him, but for half the world.

It’s peaceful, and then that peace… dies.

Sasha’s spirit disappears in an instant, like fog in the face of a strong wind. The peace dies with it, swept away on the edge of a cold breeze that brings with it whispers of a different kind.

No. Not whispers. Shouts, heard from far away. Nothing like the voices he’s been hearing up until now; every one of those was content. Peaceful. They were _at_ peace, both with where they were and how they interacted with the world.

These new voices are not, in any way, at peace. They drag him suddenly from the almost lulled sense of contentment--something he’s not felt for a long time, much longer than a year or two if he’s to be uncharacteristically honest--into a pit of dread. Of hatred. Of blame.

Oh, there is so much _blame_ in those voices. Everyone else seems to hear only one, but Oscar is closer--to the forest, to the veil, as one is much as the other, here. 

And through the veil, through the forest, its roots and veins bring him quieter voices.

Quiet, perhaps, can only be applied to the sound of them. The new voices--steeped in a frightening level of loathing--speak of _what_ is their fault. They detail the lives lost, the blood shed, the grief and the tears.

The pain they have caused hunts them through the forest, dogging their every step.

These voices bring fear with them, at first. _Bring_ fear, for it feels almost external, an emotion creeping its way into his mind as he much imagines the veins do to their victims. With every mutter, every whisper, the roots dig deeper, heightening the feeling as they delve deeper into his mind.

He almost falls to it. Oscar’s hands tremble, body quivering with the need to leave, to flee this place that reminds him so much of death two-fold. His own, and the world’s. 

Oscar holds onto his self control by a single thread. But he refuses to let his team down--refuses to let his _friends_ down. Cel makes an effort, but he can tell they’re shaken by the voices they can hear--they all are, even Zolf. The man puts up a stoic front, but Oscar can see the doubt in the way he glances to the side, the slightest waver in his voice.

Suddenly, Oscar isn’t afraid anymore. He’s _angry_.

How dare the blight settle in this place? How dare it bring pain and doubt to his friends? To Zolf?

To _himself_?

The voices of the blight use words as their weapons. But sound does not need to be a spear, stabbed into the hearts of foes; it can also be a shield for his allies.

He gives his anger free reign. Lets it devour him whole. He shakes still, but it is not from fear. It builds and builds and builds until he can barely hold it in.

On the edge of falling apart, Oscar casts. 

He channels his anger into his voice. He does not speak a ditty or a hymn, nor a pun or a poem of his own devising. What leaves his mouth is raw emotion, imbued into a single harmony of _rage_.

The enemies before them do not know whom they face. They must not; why else would they be so foolish as to challenge him in this way?

Oscar sings. He forges his voice into a shield, in a way he hasn’t done in years, and sings a note. Then another, and another, every one filled with his depression and his fear and a deep, burning fury.

The magic of sound is _his_ domain. They will not wrest it from him to harm his friends.

Not this time.


End file.
